Chris Parsons is currently General Manager of Mayborn Group North America, proud owner of the tommee tippee brand supplying a range of essential feeding, soothing and hygiene products to consumers across the globe. Tommee tippee is the current No. 1 brand of infant and toddler feeding products in the UK and one of the fastest growing brands in the global baby essentials market. Available in more than 40 countries worldwide, in recent years tommee tippee has experienced particularly strong growth in North America, Europe and Asia.

Before joining Mayborn Group Chris was the Senior Vice President of International for the NFL (National Football League), where he was responsible for the commercial and fan development activities around the globe. During his tenure Chris contributed to the growth of the NFL fan base in core focus markets, expanding marketing activities, increasing media exposure and securing record revenues for the NFL’s international business. 

Prior to joining the NFL, Chris was Vice President of Reserve Brands (Ciroc, Don Julio, Johnnie Walker Blue) for Diageo plc. In this role he established Diageo’s first luxury operations, which included the highly successful co-marketing collaboration of Ciroc with Sean “Diddy” Combs. Chris has also served as the Vice President of Johnnie Walker where under his direction, the Johnnie Walker brand expanded into broad cable advertising distribution and celebrity event marketing, resulting in record revenues and profits. During his 10 years at Diageo, Chris also served as the Vice President of Beer, winning several marketing excellence awards in the U.S. for his work with the Guinness and Red Stripe brands. He was also responsible for Diageo’s US marketing training and development programs.

Chris grew up in Manchester, UK and after graduating from Newcastle University Business School held various sales and marketing positions at Bass plc, before moving to the US with the Diageo organization.

Eduardo Garrido is an experience Management Consultant with expertise in banking and higher education acquired in Argentina, Spain and the US.

From 2009-2016 Eduardo was the Director of Santander Universities, where he was responsible for the institutional and business relationships with 46 universities, mainly in the north-eastern USA and launched several high impact global programs.

Prior to coming to the United States, he held a similar position at Banco Santander Río in Argentina, where he managed the relationship with 59 universities. In 2004 he launched a seed capital fund to foster the creation of innovative technology based companies from Universities and the scientific system in Argentina. He also launched a Regional Competitiveness and Development Program in collaboration with Universities and a Program to train entrepreneurship educators involving all Universities from Argentina. Before this, he had been SVP of Quality and Organization at Banco Santander Rio. Eduardo led the ISO 9001 certification for all processes at the bank.

He has also held positions in Spain as Senior Manager of Capital Markets and Financial Services at Price Waterhouse, S.R.C., as Director of Consulting Services at M.S.A. International Inc. and as Financial Control Manager at Citibank España, S.A.

Eduardo holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Universidad de Buenos Aires and an MBA from Instituto de Empresa in Madrid.

As Head of Communications for Thomson Reuters Global Growth & Operations (GGO) business, Jack Goodman is responsible for communications’ role in building employee engagement and for ensuring that GGO’s business goals are supported by its communications infrastructure, which includes executive communications; tools, training and other communications support for managers; online and social media channels; acquisition communications and employee engagement research.

From 2010 until March of 2012, as Global Head, Human Resources Communications, Jack led internal communications in support of Thomson Reuters “people agenda” and its key initiatives around talent, rewards, organizational development, employee engagement and supporting technology. From 2008-10, as Vice President, Employee Communication, Jack led internal communications for two groups within Thomson Reuters Markets division and, from 2003-08, he led the global employee communications function for Thomson Financial, prior to Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters.

Before joining Thomson Financial, Jack was director of w3.ibm.com, IBM’s intranet, where he developed and managed systems to deliver company-wide messaging, enhance the user experience, manage the intranet’s growth and measure its value. The intranet was cited in 2003 by 71% of IBM employees as their preferred, most credible communications channel – more than double managers and colleagues.
Prior to IBM, he headed global employee communications at McGraw-Hill; co-led the intranet practice at Xceed, a web consultancy; and managed a range of global corporate clients, including IBM, Toshiba, Mastercard and Sprint, during his tenure at the Golin-Harris and Makovsky & Company public relations firms. His background also includes management consulting, as well as television programming and production with the Arts & Entertainment Network.

Prior to IBM, he headed global employee communications at McGraw-Hill; co-led the intranet practice at Xceed, a web consultancy; and managed a range of global corporate clients, including IBM, Toshiba, Mastercard and Sprint, during his tenure at the Golin-Harris and Makovsky & Company public relations firms. His background also includes management consulting, as well as television programming and production with the Arts & Entertainment Network.

Jack holds an MBA from the State University of New York at Binghamton and a BA in sociology, magna cum laude, from Boston University.

Neil is the Principal and Founder of MindsOpen, where he coaches executives and works with leadership teams to improve performance, shift culture and drive change. He enjoys helping individuals and teams unlock new insights in order to take big strides forward. He achieves this through his relational style, being unafraid to ask the tough questions and opening minds to new and different possibilities. Other areas of specialism include leadership development, organizational development, creativity and leveraging relationships.

A business psychologist and executive coach, Neil has over two decades of global experience working with leaders, teams and organizations from a wide range of industries including investment and commercial banking, private equity, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, professional services, energy, healthcare, logistics and media. He has worked across the spectrum of Fortune 500s, small to mid-sized firms, start-ups, non-profits and government organizations.

Prior to founding MindsOpen, Neil was a Managing Director at YSC, a global leadership consulting firm. As well as leading the Americas business, his client work included coaching, succession planning and team development. Neil began his career in the UK working for the British Military, where he found his niche profiling officers for specialist roles. He then joined Scotland Yard, the police service for London, and was soon appointed Head of Psychology. He led a range of high profile assignments including debriefing the UK police response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. His last role at Scotland Yard was Director of Security Strategy for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. 

Neil is a Fulbright Scholar and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society.  He graduated with an MSc in Organizational Psychology from the University of Hull and a BA in Psychology from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. 

He lives in New York City but remains a dedicated supporter of Leeds United, his hometown soccer team. He enjoys travel, modern design and film. He also owns and curates a contemporary, online art gallery, The Road Gallery.

Since September 2013 Nigel Dawn has been the current Senior Managing Director at Evercore, providing advice and execution services for owners and managers of private financial assets. Before joining Evercore Nigel headed up the Secondary Market Advisory team within the Private Funds Group at UBS. Nigel established the Secondary Market Advisory team in 2004 and has advised on over $16 billion of secondary transactions. Clients have included leading US public investors, university endowments, banks, insurance companies, hedge funds and leading private equity general partners. He joined the firm in 1997 within the fixed income area before taking responsibility for making direct equity investments to support the strategic aims of UBS Investment Bank business areas as part of the e-commerce function.

Nigel has also led UBS Investment Bank’s Third-Party Private Equity Funds Team. As part of this role, Nigel structured and executed a $1.3 billion joint venture between UBS and HarbourVest Partners, Tresser, L.P., and reduced private equity exposure by selling third-party funds. Prior to joining UBS, Nigel worked in the Financial Services Practice at Booz, Allen & Hamilton in New York and prior to that was based in Asia with Standard Chartered Bank.

Nigel graduated from Newcastle University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Politics and earned his MBA at Columbia Business School.

Brad O'Brien is currently CEO of Hatstand, a niche technology and data management consultancy which was acquired by Synechron in May 2016. Synechron is a digital, business consulting & technology services firm working primarily in the Financial Services domain.

Hatstand's services include a bespoke junior talent development program aimed at recent graduates in business, finance and technology.

Prior to his current role Brad spent most of his professional career working within Investment Banking, including relocation from his native UK to the US in 2000 with UBS. He has lived in Stamford, CT with his wife, Joanne, and 6-year old son, Daniel, for the past 17 years. His passions include most sports (particularly rugby, cricket and "soccer") and music.

Brad earned a First Class honours degree in Economics & Business Management at Newcastle University (1991-1995).